


Olives in Brine and Artichoke Hearts

by Lobelia321



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-27
Updated: 2013-04-27
Packaged: 2017-12-09 18:06:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/776413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lobelia321/pseuds/Lobelia321
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karl wants to taste food.  John and Bernard want to taste Karl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Olives in Brine and Artichoke Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> John and Bernard: who are they? John is Denethor, Bernard is Theoden.

Title: Olives in Brine and Artichoke Hearts

Series: A follow-up piece to ['Larks and Nightingales'](larks.html). Stands on its own, though.

Part: 1/1

Author: Lobelia; lobelia40@yahoo.com

Website: http://blithesea.net/lobelia/

Pairing: Karl Urban / John Noble / Bernard Hill

Rating: NC-17

Category: Weird pairings.

Trianne's Category S: "The mysterious, gorgeous one (The one no-one in Europe has ever heard of but will probably bust a gut over when Two Towers is released)"

From the _[Trianne Guide to Writing Successful Male on Male Slash](triannesguide.html)_

Warnings/Content: RPS. Middle-aged men up to no good.

Archive: Closer than Brothers. My niche. Anyone else, please just ask.

Feedback: Yes, yes, yes! _Especially_ for these weird pairings. Tell me, even if you hate it! (I won't mind; I'm stubbornly committed to these guys.)

Disclaimers: This is a work of amateur fiction. I do not know these people. I am not making money. The events described in this story did not happen. No food was genetically modified during the production of this fic.

Summary: Karl wants to taste food. John and Bernard want to taste Karl.

Author's Notes: John and Bernard: who are they? John is Denethor, Bernard is Theoden, pics here: [Bernard and John](http://blithesea.net/lobelia/lifeaftervirginity.html)

Tonnes of thanks and kisses to Gabby who gave the loveliest beta-fb on this!

\--------------

Bernard and John were arguing again.

It was their fifth argument around the dinner table, and Karl had stopped listening to them. Bernard and John were always arguing in circles, always disagreeing about the same old things, but always going at it with a strangely intense passion that suggested that there might be something else to all these debates besides the audible exchange of words. Still, Karl didn't know what the something else was, and he wasn't really all that worried about it. All he knew was that he'd just eaten a most wonderful organic meal, courtesy of Bernard, accompanied by the most exquisite Penfold's 1996 Cabernet, and followed up with some gorgeously mellow Port. He felt pleasantly sated, pleasantly light-headed, and just ever so slightly, but also rather pleasantly, peckish.

Karl lifted his glass of Port to his lips, sucked the wine into his mouth and swilled it around a few times before swallowing it. Then he leaned across the table and picked two after-dinner mints out of the carton. He placed them both on his tongue, closed his mouth and waited for the chocolate to dissolve in his saliva. An interesting flavour of peppermint, cocoa and Port spread into the insides of his cheeks. Karl looked around the table for something else to mix with this cocktail of tastes, but just then Bernard nudged him.

"Don't you agree, Karl?"

"What? Sorry, er, I was miles away."

"Karl," repeated Bernard. "Don't you agree that acting for the screen allows for a greater intimacy with the audience?"

"Er, sure. Still on your favourite topic, are you?" Karl's eyes continued to roam across the table, and now he had discovered a twist of lemon lying abandoned on John's dinner plate. "May I?" he asked.

"Yes, yes," John replied distractedly. "But Karl, let me ask you, and I've been trying to drum this into benighted old Bern's head: what about all that rigmarole of filming everything umpteen times? Take one, take two, take bloody three hundred and seventeen. Where's the spontaneity? Where's your precious audience intimacy when you're on take three hundred and seventeen?"

"Hm," said Karl, sucking the lemon until his lips puckered. The zest of citrus combining with the chocolate, the mint and the Port made his gums tingle. "I see what you mean, John, but..."

"Christ, Karl, take that bloody thing out of your mouth, I can barely understand what you're saying."

"Sorry, John." Reluctantly, Karl extruded the lemon from his mouth, not without taking one last bite of the rind. Interestingly, the rind was quite bitter. "What I was going to say, er, was that doing several takes can actually make your performance better."

"Exactly!" cried Bernard. "Thank _you_ , Karl! Finally someone who understands screen acting!"

"Oh, bloody marvellous," guffawed John. "Now I've got a Pom and a Kiwi ganging up on me, and both of them total prostitutes to the land of the great white telly! I mean, honest to goodness, Karl, you're not going to tell me that some cheesy gladiator rip-off proves how filming in lots of takes can make your performance better?"

"Er, John. Could I remind you that _Xena_ was there first, a long time before _Gladiator_?"

"Yes, yes, but that doesn't change my point."

"What is your point, John?" cried Bernard.

"My point, Bern, my point is that TV makes a complete mockery of everything acting is and can be! TV-- and cinema, for that matter."

"And cinema, John? And cinema? So, why are you on this set, John? Just tell me that."

"Look, Bern, let's not get into that again." John swept his arm through the air, nearly upsetting one of the empty wine bottles in the process.

Karl rescued the bottle just in time. He lifted it, carefully licked the rim of the glass neck and then inserted his tongue into the opening. The droplets of cabernet produced an interesting sensation when infused into the lemon juice still embedded in his taste buds. He tried to stretch his tongue as far as he could into the neck, and it was only then that he noticed the silence.

Karl looked up, tongue still absurdly twisted into the bottle neck.

He saw two pairs of eyes fixed on him. One pair was passionately brooding, the other was piercing and intense.

"Ah, Karl," said Bernard and cleared his throat. "What are you doing there, lad?"

"Er," said Karl and hurriedly set the bottle down at the far end of the table. "Nothing."

"I see," said Bernard, and Karl noticed how Bernard's gaze flickered over to John and back. "Don't mind us, will you, Karl? Here, have another one." And he handed Karl the second empty wine bottle.

"No, no, haha." Karl vaguely waved his hand.

Bernard put the bottle down, looked over towards John again, then back at Karl and smiled a slow smile. "Pity," he said.

Karl wasn't sure what there was to pity. He was just beginning to feel uncomfortable under Bernard's prolonged and piercing gaze when John nodded, touched Bernard on the arm, and the two of them continued their dispute. Seemed to continue it, anyway. If Karl had listened more carefully, he might have detected a new note, a new undertone, creeping into Bernard and John's debate. He might have wondered why their eyes kept returning to him, why their voices became rough around the edges, why they smiled with the corners of their mouths turned down and their eyebrows arching.

Karl, though, noticed none of this. He seized the last wedge of taleggio from the cheese platter and popped it into his mouth. The taleggio was soft and springy, it tasted of goat's arse, and it half-resisted, half-yielded to Karl's teeth in a most satisfying way.

Eating the cheese reminded Karl of something. He closed his eyes for a minute, letting the viscous innards of the taleggio spread around his teeth, curling the tip of his tongue around the pliant, velveteen-like rind. He let his thoughts drift, and then he remembered what the cheese reminded him of. It was his first sexual experience. The taleggio reminded Karl of the night he had lost his virginity.

They'd been eating cheese that night, too; some sort of soft cheese, just like this one, hard outside, soft inside, just like his lover. They'd fed bite-sized chunks of the cheese to each other, inserting them into each other's wet mouths, fishing them out again with their tongues. His lover's skin under Karl's hands had felt like peach skin, or like the softly-furred rind of the taleggio. And their kisses had tasted of goat and cream and lust. And after the kissing, they had done something else. They had rubbed, yes what was it again? That's right-- they had rubbed vanilla custard onto each other's bellies and licked it off. Karl couldn't remember why or how they'd got hold of the custard, only its cool, glutinous texture and its sweet, spry taste.

"Karl? Karl! Isn't that right, Karl?" That was Bernard's voice.

"Sorry, what?" Karl opened his eyes and swallowed the cheese.

"Wouldn't you agree that multiple takes allow you to fine-tune a shot?"

Were they still going on about that? Karl had the vague feeling that he was being used as a counter in some on-going, private game between Bernard and John. However, at the moment he wasn't much bothered because he had spotted a limp rocket leaf on Bernard's plate and sneaked over two fingers to pinch it. Now the rocket added an intriguingly nutty note to the Port, lemon and cheese in his mouth but the chocolate flavour was rapidly disappearing so Karl leaned over and fished two more mints out of the box.

"Karl? Isn't that right?"

"Er, oh, yes, Bernard. With TV, you get a chance to perfect a particular shot."

"And that is just where TV goes wrong!" cried John. "Shots, perfecting, takes -- what garbage! A good actor doesn't need takes to perfect his role; he can do it first off! And a good actor shouldn't think in terms of 'shots', either, but in terms of the whole play, the whole performance in its entirety! Not just the bitty shots and crap you get in TV or cinema!"

"Prove it, John, prove it."

"No, you prove to me, Bern, how your takes and your scenes create that famous audience intimacy you're so fond of praising."

"All right, John. With pleasure, John. Come on, Karl, get up."

"Wha--?" Karl was still munching on a macadamia nut when he was unceremoniously pulled to his feet by his table neighbour.

"Think of a scene, John," urged Bernard. "Think of a scene, and Karl and I will show you what is meant by good screen acting."

"Er," said Karl.

"Don't be churlish, Karl," said Bernard. "You can do this, you've been in enough TV shows. And you love it, I've heard you go on about it. And, John, you know what, Karl here and I, we're going to convince you of screen intimacy. Aren't we, Karl?"

"This is going to be interesting," said John.

John was leaning against the back of the sofa, arms crossed. He had, Karl noticed, a decidedly wicked grin on his face. Not that Karl cared; he was trying to reach around behind Bernard's back and surreptitiously grab another handful of nuts. The nuts added not only a distinctive note to the taste melange in Karl's mouth but also had a crunchy texture which contrasted pleasantly with the limpness of the rocket leaf he'd just eaten.

"So," John went on. "How are we going to fabricate this intimacy then, Bern?"

"The intimacy, John," said Bernard, "arises out of the close-up. It's all very well to go on about using your body on stage but the beauty of screen acting is that the audience gets to see every tiny expression on your face, close up. You've got to activate every muscle, every nerve of your face. And you've got to be subtle about it."

"Let me see." John stroked his chin. "A close-up, eh? I know what. I think we should do a kissing scene. Don't you think we should do a kissing scene, Bern?"

"Kissing's good. Kissing works very well on the small screen. As it does on the big. Isn't that right, Karl?"

"What? We're going to kiss?" Karl was temporarily shocked out of his food reverie.

"Indeed we are, Karl. And Karl: do your best. We want to show this telly-sceptic what mettle we of the screen are made of."

"Did you say we're going to be kissing?"

"Yes, Karl. You've done a screen kiss before, haven't you?"

"Er, but..."

"Good, then. Now, John, you stand over there, in the position of the camera, and when you want us to start, just shout out 'Action'."

"Er," repeated Karl, feeling slightly at sea with the proceedings. He cast a longing glance at the table and moved his tongue nervously around his teeth. Grains of macadamia were still lodged between his molars. He wished for one last drink of Port but then John yelled, "Action!" Before Karl could even catch his breath, Bernard's mouth was on his.

Screen kiss, screen kiss, right. You sort of had to slant your head in a direction away from the camera and jut your chin out at an angle, and you didn't open your mouth, you just sort of sucked lips and moved your head about. He could do this, no sweat. And fucking hell, Bernard sure could. He had his hand at the back of Karl's skull, his eyes closed and his lips palpitating across Karl's. He was even making a low moaning sound in his chest; it was quite extraordinary. Not in a million years would Karl have imagined that an old guy like Bernard could give such an amazing screen kiss.

"Cut!" yelled John.

Bernard moved away. Karl felt almost disappointed. He had caught a faint taste of something on Bernard's lips, just a whiff of-- what? Cigar smoke? Artichoke heart? Karl licked his own lips.

"All right," said Bernard. "That was take one. And now, John, we'll do take two and we'll show you exactly how this can be perfected."

"Hang on," said John, and if Karl hadn't been distracted by the flavour of Bernard's lips quite so much, he might have noticed the lively glint in John's eyes. "Shouldn't you be directing this, Bernard? What's the point in me just standing here?"

"Excellent idea, John. You are right. It's you who's got to be convinced so you should stand here, in my place, and I'll go over there and direct."

Karl shook his head. How much wine had he drunk? Because what Bernard and John had just agreed on didn't seem to make sense to him at all. He opened his mouth to protest but nobody appeared to be very interested in his contribution to the debate so he shut it again. And before he could get his thoughts properly into gear, Bernard had yelled, "Action!" and John's mouth was on his.

Jesus.

"Cut, cut, cut! John, that was _not_ a screen kiss! That was using tongues, wasn't it?"

"Sorry, Bern. How would I know? I don't know about the screen. Right, Karl?"

If there was a mocking note in John's voice, Karl wasn't hearing it. He felt vertiginous.

"Karl, you show him how it's done," said Bernard. "All right, everybody. Action!"

Right. Show John how it's done. The problem was that Karl's senses were still reeling from the last kiss. John's mouth had been a kaleidoscope of tastes, Port, of course, and rocket and lemon but also something else, salmon perhaps or olives in brine. Karl was desperate to get another taste of John's tongue. So when John kept his lips primly closed this time, Karl didn't hesitate to push his tongue between them into the delicious moist interior behind.

"Cut!" came Bernard's voice but Karl was so immersed in John's flavours that he didn't bother to stop, and John didn't either.

"Right." And this time Bernard's voice came from only a few inches away. Karl reluctantly pulled away. Hm, now he had a complex mixture of lemon, cheese, Port, nut, salmon and olive in his mouth. What he needed was another bite of those after-dinner mints because the chocolate taste was fading fast. He peered towards the table.

"This is no good, is it?" said Bernard. "I have a better suggestion. Karl, why don't you do the directing? And John and I can have a go at this screen-kissing business. That way, stage and screen can have it out. Directly."

"Yeah, direct is best." John grinned. "Karl, don't look so disappointed."

Karl shrugged. Whatever. He edged towards the dinner table and quickly snatched a couple of mints before Bernard came to steer him towards the sofa.

"Stand here," Bernard told him. "Don't move. You're the camera."

"I'm the camera."

"Well, and the director. So: direct!"

"Er, action."

And by God, could those old guys kiss. For several seconds in a row, Karl even forgot to chew on his after-dinner mints. Bernard was moving his head around and moaning, and John's hands were bloody everywhere, and now they were grinding their hips together, and then Bernard bent his head back while John bit his neck.

"Karl?" said Bernard, his voice sounding strangled in that bent position.

"Y... yeah?"

"End of kiss, end of shot."

"Sorry, yes. Cut."

Bernard and John straightened up. Bernard's hair was mussed up and John looked decidedly flushed. Karl glanced down at their trousers, and what he saw there had a disconcerting and instant effect on him. He shifted his legs.

"Karl?"

"Yeah. Sorry. That was good. Er, take two."

And they were at it again. Karl gaped. His mouth literally fell open and a bit of nut dropped to the carpet. Not only were Bernard and John now deep-kissing but they were being quite open-mouthed about it and showing Karl their pink, wet tongues. In addition, Bernard was making those dirty moaning sounds. Karl decided that he needed to sit down on the sofa. With his legs crossed.

He also had the vague impression that this wasn't the first time that Bernard and John had done this.

"Cut," he croaked.

"Right. Ah, what take are we on?"

"I need a drink. Want one, Bern?"

"Oh, yes, thanks, John. How about you, Karl?"

So they each had several swallows of Port, and the thought of all that Port in all those mouths was making Karl's throat ache. He coughed.

"As director," he said, feeling bold, "maybe I should... maybe I need to show you what exactly you're supposed to be doing."

"Yes, that's always a good idea. Very good, Karl. Showing initiative."

"On stage, too, Bern. That's a good idea on stage as well."

"Oh, I'm sure it is, John. Come on then, Karl. Show us."

Karl looked from one to the other, trying to gauge their expressions. His knees felt a bit weak but mostly, he was just very keen to get a taste of that Port mingled with salmon and olive and artichoke heart.

"Okay," he said and stood up. "Maybe like this." He hesitated for just one second, but then leaned forward and determinedly kissed Bernard because he hadn't yet fully tasted Bernard's mouth, and did it ever taste divine. "Or maybe like this," he said, turned around and kissed John because he wanted to mingle his mint and chocolate with John's salmon and Port once again.

"Or maybe like this," he heard Bernard mutter behind him, and while he was still involved with kissing John, he felt another tongue on his neck, and that must be Bernard's tongue, licking its way down his nape and into the top of his shirt, and God, the thought of artichoke and Port mixed with his own sweat was enough to make his knees buckle. Karl had just enough presence of mind left to stammer, "Cut." Everyone drew apart.

"I... I think I need a drink. Of water."

"Do you, Karl? Feeling a bit hot under the, ah, collar, Karl?"

"Go on, Karl. There's water in the kitchen. We'll, ahem, we'll wait for you out here. Won't we, Bern?"

Karl wove his way past the table and chairs through the sliding door into the kitchen. He had to hold on to the counter top for a minute to steady himself, both his body and his thoughts. Water, water, right. He opened the fridge door and there was a large filter jug, half-full. He poured himself a glass and listened for voices from the living room. Strange, there weren't any. What had happened to all that arguing? The water was ice cold and flowed down his throat in almost painful gulps. It also refreshed the flavours in his mouth.

Karl set down the glass and looked about him. There, against the wall, hung a wooden spice rack. He picked up a few jars at random, unscrewed the lids, sniffed, shook coin-sized portions of powder into his palm, licked them off. Ground cumin, coriander, turmeric, all-spice. It was quite a heady mix. Like absorbing a concentrated dose of curry.

Wedged against the end of the spice rack was a small green tube. Karl examined it. He couldn't decipher the Japanese characters on it. He took the top off and squeezed a dollop of an avocado-coloured paste onto his forefinger. He sucked it off. Almost at once, his eyes began to sting dreadfully and a pungent pain blazed through his nostrils. He opened his mouth and panted to cool his burning tongue. Then he crammed the tube back into its place and lurched into the living room.

He didn't see Bernard and John at first, and only became aware of them when they sprang apart as if caught unawares at something. But Karl was still too busy dealing with his tongue and nostrils and eyes to notice what they had been up to.

"Ah, Karl," said Bernard, sounding out of breath. "What's the matter with you? Your eyes are watering."

"Oh, nothing," said Karl, still panting.

Bernard looked at John, John looked at Karl.

"Still feeling quite hot then, Karl?" asked John.

"Yes, I'm afraid I..." began Karl but didn't get much further than that because, Jesus Christ, there was John's mouth on his again. What was it with these guys and the constant kissing? Nevertheless, kissing John was quite interesting because he no longer tasted simply of salmon and olives; he now tasted of something else as well, yes it was quite distinctive, it was artichoke hearts and cigar smoke. Now that was...

But before Karl could really sample the new flavours, John jumped away and yelled, "Fuck, Karl! What have you been eating out there? Shit." He poked his tongue out and blew through his mouth.

"What? What is it? Let me taste." And without preamble, Bernard pressed his own mouth to Karl's and ran his tongue around the insides of Karl's lips. "Mmm," he said, sucking his teeth. "Wasabi paste. No wonder your eyes are watering."

"Wasabi fucking what?" said John who was now at the table, pouring Port down his throat. "Christ, Karl, are you trying to kill me or something?"

"Er," said Karl, resisting the urge to point out that, as far as he could recall, he hadn't actually invited anybody to kiss him. The heat of the paste was abating, and Karl could again savour the blend of spices in his mouth. There was also the lingering sensation of salmon, artichoke, cigars and olives. Karl was watering at the mouth.

Those two were looking at him again, smiling their strange little smiles.

"Are we, er," said Karl, "still doing takes and screen kissing? And all that?"

"Screen kissing," said John, stretching the syllables and smacking his lips thoughtfully. "Yes... Actually, Karl, ahem, Bern and I have been doing a bit of rehearsing while you were in the kitchen."

"Not rehearsing, John. Takes. In cinema, that's what it is: takes."

"Takes, right. But we were thinking, weren't we, Bern, that a kiss does have its limits on the screen."

"Does it?" stammered Karl.

"Yeah. As Bern was saying, you don't really get much chance to go into any special facial expressions, do you? There's not really all that much required in the way of acting."

Karl was uncertain as to where this conversation was heading. Come to think of it, he had been uncertain about the point of their conversation for some time now. Luckily, he had also spied a fruit bowl sitting on top of the TV set, and he inched towards it.

"So, Karl, we thought it would be a good idea," said Bernard, "if we tried another kind of scene. Just to convince John. A scene where facial expression is all-important."

Karl nodded, pretending to be attentive while at the same time plucking a grape off its vine and sliding it into his mouth. He closed his lips over it, curled his tongue around the round smooth shape, then balanced it between his front teeth and bit into it softly. His incisors sawed through the fragile membrane, and a burst of fresh, sharp juice exploded into his cheeks. He gave a little grunt of pleasure.

Wrong thing to do.

The grunt appeared to activate some primordial urges still slumbering within John and Bernard. They both went quiet as Karl grunted, straightened their backs, looked at each other, looked at Karl with those intent eyes. Indeed, their whole bodies were intent on Karl. Karl stopped moving his mouth, let the grape juice trickle down his gullet, allowed the grape skin to curl up on his tongue.

"What?" he said.

John licked his lips slowly. His long pink tongue crawled all along his chiselled upper lip, as if in slow motion, wormed its way into the corner of his mouth, and then slid all the way back along his lower lip. Tiny droplets of spit trailed along the smooth skin of his lips, mingling with equally tiny droplets of perspiration in the dip between the two curves of his upper lip.

Karl stared at John's tongue, stared at John's lips. He suddenly felt the need to cross his legs again. He reached behind him for some support; his hand landed in the fruit bowl and closed around a large, round orange.

"Ah, yes," said Bernard and cleared his throat. "The, ah, scene we had in mind, well, I don't know quite how to put this. Perhaps it would be best if we just demonstrated it. Would that be all right?"

"Er," said Karl.

"And mind, we want to demonstrate the subtleties needed for close-up filming. All right, Karl?"

Karl blinked. That is, he started to blink. He lowered his eye lids, but before he could lift them again, he felt something on his groin. Fucking hell. A hand, someone's hand, he wasn't even sure whose, he didn't dare open his eyes. It certainly wasn't his own fucking hand, because one of those was clutching the orange and the other one clawing blindly at the TV aerial.

Right, right. What had Bernard been saying? Something about subtle facial expressions? Close-ups? Right, shit. If he just focussed on that... If he could only manage to focus... He was a professional actor, after all. He should be up to this. It was only acting, after all; it wasn't as if they were really... Sweet fucking Jesus. Now someone, he couldn't see as white spots were swirling before his tightly-shut eye lids, but someone was unbuttoning his fly, reaching into his boxers, curling adept fingers around his cock... And as Karl's mouth involuntarily opened into a gasp, someone else's mouth descended on it. He wasn't sure whose it was at first, it tasted of salmon, artichoke hearts, cigars, olives, the whole fucking lot. The alien tongue scooped the grape skin from Karl's mouth, then there was a spitting sound and John's voice, "Christ, Karl, why are you always eating some weird fucking thing?"

"That's not very subtle, is it now, John?" came Bernard's voice, from somewhere below, somewhere around Karl's navel. Jesus, what was he doing down there? But Karl had no time to ponder this question because John's mouth was closing on his again, John's hand coiled around his neck, John's thumb against Karl's Adam's apple, and fuck, the man could kiss.

Karl didn't quite comprehend how this display of wanton abandon could possibly be used to demonstrate facial expressions or the subtleties of the screen. He had stopped feeling subtle aeons ago. He could barely manage to remain on his feet, let alone be subtle. There were hands at his jeans, sliding down between his thighs, fingers insinuating themselves underneath the seams of his boxers, rubbing his perineum, and now, sweet fuck, a mouth was pressed against his hard-on. A tongue flicked into the slit of his boxers' fly, touched skin, Jesus, Karl nearly screamed. And then the tongue and the lips and the mouth pulled and worked away at the boxers, tugged Karl's cock out through the slit, licked Karl's glans, sucked his dick, holy Christ, how was this all happening so fast?

Karl's balls were being chafed by the cotton of his boxers, his cock was drowning in saliva, his anus was being rubbed by a probing finger, his mouth was being so thoroughly kissed that he forgot about cheese and lemon and Port, just held onto the fruit bowl and the TV antenna, held on because there seemed to be some sort of earthquake making the room shudder and judder. But no, it was only his orgasm, it was making his knees quake, and my God, fuck, had he just come into Bernard's mouth?

Karl shivered with orgasmic aftershocks, seismic aftershocks, still keeping his eyes shut, his mind in a useless whirl. He had dug his finger nails into the orange with such ferocity that deep gashes had been gouged into its dimpled skin.

Karl's mouth hung open; John moved his tongue around in it at will, cleaning it out, drinking Karl's saliva, massaging his taste buds, slowing down, moving off.

Karl opened his eyes and took in the scene.

There was John, standing only a foot away, lips red, cheeks flushed, eyes quite wild.

There was Bernard, kneeling on the carpet, lips parted, showing Karl the thread of come coating the tip of his tongue. Jesus.

Karl could barely focus his gaze but he stared at Bernard's mouth, stared at the sight of his own come on Bernard's tongue. He started to imagine what it would taste like. The very idea made Karl feel slightly delirious. Without thinking, he bent down, opened his lips and sucked the come from Bernard's tongue. He moved it around his mouth before swallowing, an intoxicating blend of Port, artichoke, olives, and the hot salt and pewter flavour of his semen.

Karl straightened up and relaxed his arms. He still held the orange in his fist. He looked at it, then he slowly started to peel the fruit, tearing off chunks of the rind until he had exposed the flesh beneath. He bit into the pulp, let the sharp, tangy juice, mixed with pips and sticky strings, flow into his cheeks and down his chin, down his throat, let it seep underneath his shirt collar. Port, cheese, orange, mint, cumin, salt, it all filled Karl's mouth, filled his head, filled his brain.

"Ah," said Bernard and stood up.

"Ahem," said John.

"That was a good touch," said Bernard.

"Yeah, " said John. "Quite inspired. That was almost worthy of the stage, Karl."

"Allow me," said Bernard and leant in to lick the juices off Karl's throat.

"No, permit me," said John and licked Karl's cheek.

Seeing that they were almost bumping heads in their eagerness to clean up Karl, it seemed only natural that now John and Bernard should be kissing again, wrapping their tongues around each other only inches in front of Karl's face, dripping orange juice over each other's lips and chins.

"Right," said Bernard after a while. "Let me get us some more Port. Karl, you're looking a bit, ah, weak in the knees. Why don't you button yourself up, lad, and have a seat over there? On the sofa. In the middle."

Karl obediently sank into the sofa. John sat down on his left, placing a familiar hand on his thigh, using the other hand to remove the orange from Karl's fingers. He took a suggestively slow bite of it himself, grinning at Karl under arched eyebrows. Bernard reappeared with three glasses and sat down on Karl's right.

Karl looked from one to the other, imagining Port mixed with olives mixed with the residue of his own sperm. And perhaps even with sperm not his own...

"Er," he said. "You have some really good food in this house, Bernard."

"Yeah," said John, "doesn't he just? He's a fantastic cook, aren't you, Bern?"

"Why don't you come round to dinner again, Karl?" suggested Bernard. "Next Saturday. Eight o'clock sharp. Perhaps we can, ah, demonstrate the superiority of the screen once more. I'm not sure we have completely convinced John yet. What do you say, Karl?"

"Will there be any vanilla custard?" asked Karl.

"Karl, my lad," said Bernard, smiling broadly. "I've got a whole tub of home-made, organic vanilla custard out in the larder right now. Did you just want to eat it? Or do you have something else in mind?"

\----------------

The End.

If you enjoyed this story, please comment below.

10 May 2002


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